All about risk
Excerpt:
Going through the text of the stimulus bill, section 9703 continues allowing those who run multiemployer plans and their actuaries to make up their own rules as long as such calculations do not overly embarrass the regulators and they do not sneak in any benefit increases.
Author(s): John Bury
Publication Date: 14 March 2021
Publication Site: burypensions
Excerpt:
Going through the text of the stimulus bill we come to section 9702 which says that for multiemployer plans self-designated as being in Critical and Endangered status, who had to come up with a plan to dig out, will have their funding improvement or rehabilitation period extended by 5 years.
I wonder if any of these funding improvement plans filed before ARPA included a line like:
Waiting for union-controlled democrats to take over the federal government so 100% of all unfunded liabilities get covered by taxpayers.
Author(s): John Bury
Publication Date: 12 March 2021
Publication Site: burypensions
Excerpt:
We start with a provision that keeps multiemployer plans who did not have the foresight to designate their plans in bad shape from rushing for the increments.
Option number one for getting the bailout money is to have a multiemployer plan in Critical and Declining status. To avoid having 1,400 plans in Critical and Declining status all at once this provision seems to freeze a plan’s status to what was claimed for the plan year that began on or after March 1, 2019.
Here is the wording. Tell me if you see anything different.
Author(s): John Bury
Publication Date: 11 March 2021
Publication Site: Burypensions
Link: https://www.manhattan-institute.org/hendrix-tax-tools-local-governments-ways-and-means
PDF of testimony: https://waysandmeans.house.gov/sites/democrats.waysandmeans.house.gov/files/documents/Michael%20Hendrix%20Testimony.pdf
Excerpt:
While America’s real GDP fell in 2020, states and local tax receipts actually increased—once you add in federal aid, revenues actually grew by nearly 10 percent. As their costs from fighting the pandemic grew and layoffs loomed, Congress rightly stepped up to help. There’s been $360 billion in direct relief for Covid-19 and hundreds of billions more in indirect aid—all told, Washington sent more than $1 trillion to states and localities last year.
Author(s): Michael Hendrix
Publication Date: 11 March 2021
Publication Site: Manhattan Institute
Link: https://www.ai-cio.com/news/mcafee-indicted-fraud-money-laundering-conspiracy-crimes/
Excerpt:
John McAfee, founder of cybersecurity software company McAfee, has been indicted on multiple charges stemming from two purported schemes relating to the allegedly fraudulent promotion of cryptocurrencies. Jimmy Watson, who served as an executive adviser on McAfee’s “cryptocurrency team,” was also charged in the indictment.
According to the allegations in the complaint, which was unsealed in Manhattan federal court, the first of the two schemes involved a fraudulent practice called “scalping,” also known as a “pump-and-dump” scheme. As part of the alleged scheme, McAfee, Watson, and other associates allegedly bought large quantities of publicly traded cryptocurrency altcoins at low market prices, knowing that McAfee planned to publicly endorse them on his Twitter account, which had approximately 784,000 followers.
Author(s): Michael Katz
Publication Date: 12 March 2021
Publication Site: ai-CIO
Excerpt:
Washington State’s Aging and Long-Term Support Administration, which falls under the Department of Social and Health Services, directed nursing homes to accept COVID-positive patients that were no longer needing “acute care” in a hospital. The goal was to “transition” those patients to “alternative settings”
“Our primary strategy to create capacity in acute care hospitals is working with participating patients and families to transition to nursing homes,” a March 20, 2020 memo stated. “Once in the nursing home, Home and Community Services staff will work the eligible individual and their family to transition to a permanent home and community-based setting of their choice.”
In exchange for taking in those patients, nursing home facilities would receive an additional $100 Medicare add-on for up to six months, The Post Millennial. That funding was part of two Medicaid waivers the state filed.
Author(s): Beth Baumann
Publication Date: 13 March 2021
Publication Site: Townhall
Link: https://www.ajpmonline.org/article/S0749-3797(21)00135-5/fulltext
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2021.01.034
Graphic:
Excerpt:
Results: From March to early June, Republican-led states had lower COVID-19 incidence rates compared with Democratic-led states. On June 3, the association reversed, and Republican-led states had higher incidence (RR=1.10, 95% PI=1.01, 1.18). This trend persisted through early December. For death rates, Republican-led states had lower rates early in the pandemic, but higher rates from July 4 (RR=1.18, 95% PI=1.02, 1.31) through mid-December. Republican-led states had higher test positivity rates starting on May 30 (RR=1.70, 95% PI=1.66, 1.73) and lower testing rates by September 30 (RR=0.95, 95% PI=0.90, 0.98).
Author(s): Brian Neelon, PhD; Fedelis Mutiso, MS; Noel T. Mueller, PhD, MPH; John L. Pearce, PhD; Sara E. Benjamin-Neelon, PhD, JD, MPH
Publication Date: 9 March 2021
Publication Site: American Journal of Preventive Medicine
Excerpt:
States with Democratic governors had the highest incidence and death rates from Covid-19 in the first months of the coronavirus pandemic, but states with Republican governors surpassed those rates as the crisis dragged on, a study released Tuesday found.
“From March to early June, Republican-led states had lower Covid-19 incidence rates compared with Democratic-led states. On June 3, the association reversed, and Republican-led states had higher incidence,” the study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Medical University of South Carolina showed.
“For death rates, Republican-led states had lower rates early in the pandemic, but higher rates from July 4 through mid-December,” the study found.
Author(s): Dareh Gregorian
Publication Date: 11 March 2021
Publication Site: NBC News
Link: https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2021/03/01/group-wants-life-underwriters-to-post-covid-19-standards/
Excerpt:
The Consumer Federation of America says life insurers should voluntarily disclose the changes they are making in life insurance underwriting procedures and standards as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Washington-based federation says life insurers ought to at least answer basic questions, such as whether they will require applicants to use COVID-19 vaccines, what kinds of tests and test results they’ll require and whether and how standards might vary by applicant age.
Author(s): Allison Bell
Publication Date: 1 March 2021
Publication Site: Think Advisor
Excerpt:
In the shadow of stimulus checks and extra unemployment aid, Democratic lawmakers extended another hand in the $1.9 trillion pandemic relief package: a long-sought bailout for failing private pension plans.
The union-backed provision, touted for years by Representative Richard E. Neal, was signed into law Thursday by President Biden as part of the larger COVID-19 stimulus bill. It promises to set aside an estimated $86 billion — and some say possibly far more — in grants for multi-employer retirement plans that were careening toward insolvency even before the pandemic hit.
Without it, the multi-employer pension plans for more than a million truckers, warehouse and retail workers, and others could collapse, unions and congressional Democrats warn. In New England alone, the measure could help preserve the promised retirements of at least 70,000 Teamster members, union officials said.
Author(s): Matt Stout
Publication Date: 13 March 2021
Publication Site: Boston Globe
Excerpt:
In December, PSERS consulting actuary Buck reported that the system’s investments had netted a 6.38 percent average annual rate of return over the nine previous fiscal years between 2011 and 2020. That meant employees were spared a contribution rate increase by slimmest of margins. The investment benchmark was a 6.36 percent rate of return.
The risk mandate, of course, was a response to the system’s chronic underfunding. According to the most recent estimates, which themselves are fungible, the system reported an unfunded pension liability of at least $44 billion. That means it has just over 59 percent of the money necessary to meet current pension obligations.
On Friday night, the system’s board of trustees announced an audit, including the possible hiring of an outside firm to investigate, after it was “made aware of an error regarding the reporting of investment performance numbers.”
Author(s): Wallace McKelvey
Publication Date: 13 March 2021
Publication Site: PennLive
Excerpt:
The State Department of Health (DOH) has failed to hold accountable certain health care providers including hospitals, nursing homes and individual nurses, for patient safety violations and use its power under the law to impose stronger fines. Additionally, DOH does not ensure amounts collected are directed to increase patient safety, as required, according to an audit released today by State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli.
“Lisa’s Law was created to make health care in New York safer and give patients the knowledge they need to make informed decisions,” DiNapoli said. “The Department of Health generally has improved the public’s access to health care information. Too often, however, it gives negligent health care providers a slap on the wrist by not issuing financial penalties that can act as a deterrent against future incidents and help fund improvements in patient safety. DOH needs to do better.”
Author(s): Thomas DiNapoli
Publication Date: 10 March 2021
Publication Site: Office of the NY State Comptroller